00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Mr. Seichi's 97th birthday party. I'm here in the house and we're going to be celebrating. He's got his birthday cake over here. But before we start, I wanted to say thank you to all of you for the support for Mr. Seichi. He's been on the Only in Japan main channel like four or five times, giving his point of view on Japanese culture. So it's really valuable to have him here with us. So I'm going to turn it around. Here's Mr. Seichi.

00:00:31 John Daub: Congratulations on your birthday! How old are you?

00:00:40 Mr. Seichi: Oh, there it is. 97 years old.

00:00:48 John Daub: So, should we turn on the lights? Let's get this party going. Oh wow, it's like impact lights. That's nice. So, should we sing?

00:01:17 Mr. Seichi: Oh, you're going to sing?

00:01:20 John Daub: Let's sing. Alright. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Oji-chan. Happy birthday to you.

00:01:40 John Daub: Alright, blow it out! Alright, well done. Good job, look at that. 97. What did you write? Happy birthday dear Seichi. Mr. Seichi. 97 years old. You're still young. Let's eat.

00:02:12 John Daub: Is this yours?

00:02:19 Mr. Seichi: Yeah, it's mine.

00:02:21 John Daub: I'll take a picture. Do you have a secret to your long life?

00:02:34 Mr. Seichi: What?

00:02:35 John Daub: A secret to your long life. What's your secret to your long life?

00:02:39 Mr. Seichi: To get along with people.

00:02:46 John Daub: To get along with people? And what else?

00:02:49 Mr. Seichi: To be beautiful.

00:02:58 John Daub: To be beautiful. You like karaoke, right?

00:03:08 Mr. Seichi: I like karaoke too.

00:03:11 John Daub: To sing with a big girl. What's your secret to a girl?

00:03:17 Mr. Seichi: To get along with people. Karaoke.

00:03:22 John Daub: Karaoke? Oh, okay. Yay. But in Japanese, do you sing that song?

00:03:44 Mr. Seichi: Yeah, I sing that song.

00:03:47 John Daub: Oh, really? Wonderful. If you're lucky enough to see 97, that's quite a cake. Okay, let's eat. Do you want to eat? Let's eat. Yay.

00:04:10 John Daub: This is... Cha-cha is here. Cha-cha.

00:04:22 Mr. Seichi: Japanese baseball on the TV.

00:04:26 John Daub: Oh, Japanese house. Cha-cha is here. It's a big achievement. 97 years old. Turn this down for a second. Yeah, there's Cha-cha. Monster. It's a ferret. This is Cha-cha. He lives here in the house. How old is Cha-cha?

00:05:16 Mr. Seichi: Five years old. Six years old.

00:05:22 John Daub: Yeah, Cha-cha. Nice to meet you, Cha-cha. So, in Japan, Japan has one of the highest lifespans in the world. It's like 83 or 84 years old. It's definitely quite an achievement when you exceed the average lifespan. And Mr. Seichi is at 97. And he says the secret is just to nakayoku (get along well), like have a balance in your life and be friendly with everything. He has a hobby. He doesn't say it, but it's karaoke. And we're going to eat the cake. And if we have some time after the cake, we're going to show you some karaoke. He's an avid karaoke singer. And it should be a lot of fun to share with you some of his songs. Thankfully, the music is royalty free. Probably because copyright has expired after 70 years. But his favorite type of music is enka (traditional Japanese ballad). And enka is a traditional type of Japanese song which gives you a feeling of another era. So we're going to eat the cake. And then afterwards we're going to see if Mr. Seichi will sing us some karaoke. So stay tuned for 5 or 10 minutes. Hang loose while we eat.

00:06:49 John Daub: What is this? Oh, it's sugar. Oh, this is from Asakusa, right? Angelus. Angelus, nice. That's a nice looking cake. Look at that.

00:07:06 Guest: Oh, this one is good.

00:07:09 John Daub: Really? Then I'll have this one.

00:07:10 Mr. Seichi: No, I'm fine.

00:07:12 John Daub: Do you want to eat? But it's hard. It's chocolate. Oh, it's chocolate. This is from John. It's fine. I'll give it to you.

00:07:29 Guest: Thank you. This is from Megumi. Do you like chocolate cake?

00:07:40 Mr. Seichi: Uncle.

00:07:44 Guest: Do you like chocolate cake?

00:07:49 Mr. Seichi: I do.

00:07:51 Guest: You do, right?

00:07:52 Mr. Seichi: I do. I'm a little bit of a [?marugari?] addict.

00:08:02 Megumi: Shino, do you really sing Happy Birthday songs in English? Sing, sing. Sing it in English.

00:08:07 Guest: It's a different pronunciation. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear uncle. Happy birthday to you. Yeah, and many more.

00:08:24 John Daub: Yeah. I didn't know that. It's in Japanese. Somebody wrote Megumi. She is cute. Oh. Somebody wrote it. I didn't know. Very nice. She has a fan. Actually, if you remember, it was like... Where? You slapped her, right?

00:08:48 Megumi: Yeah, I did.

00:08:49 John Daub: Which episode was that? Spine. Megumi is the one who slapped me when I tried to do a pick-up line on the street. So you might want to check out that Fukushima episode. On the Purikura (photo booth) episode.

00:09:09 Megumi: On the Purikura episode, right. Yeah, and the Purikura episode was also Megumi. Megumi and your friend. You're friends, right?

00:09:16 John Daub: Alright, let's eat this thing. This cake looks so good. Is there milk? Delicious. This is made in Asakusa at a famous bakery. The cake looks really good. Happy Birthday. It's sweet. I like it. Let's try this cake. Mmm. Very nice. It's delicious. There's jelly in it. Apricot? It's like an apricot jam. It was good. There's a white one in the butter cake. Don't eat me. Sorry. This is butter. Buttercream cake. That's a big piece. It's a bit bigger. It's a Costco cake.

00:10:47 Guest: Costco cake? It's a bit big. It's too big. It's hard to eat. It's like a cake with a light color. It's good. I'll give you a flower.

00:11:08 Mr. Seichi: Thank you.

00:11:12 John Daub: I got a flower. Alright, so maybe we'll hear some karaoke later.